LED Grow Lights are becoming more and more popular in all types of indoor gardening. The best led grow lights can help you to grow strong, healthy plants. They can give you a huge yield plus great quality of fruits and flowers. Indoor growing offers many advantages. The biggest benefits are the most obvious! Garden pests can't get at your plants, and you have total control over the weather.

How LED Grow Lights Work

If LED lights for growing are new to you, or if you're thinking of making the switch from high-pressure sodium (HPS) or HID grow lamps, here's a quick rundown of how they work. Plants need red light to help with photosynthesis. It's this light waveband that encourages plants to grow long stems, big leaves, and it can help with germination and flowering.

Also important are blue lights. These help with stems and leaves, but if there's too much blue light, it can inhibit the growth. Plants grown indoors need a bit of blue light, which also helps with the leaf thickness and the amount of chlorophyll the plant contains.

Green light is usually considered less important, but a little bit added to the necessary reds and blues can help with photosynthesis.

Finally, white light isn't necessary. You can achieve white light with an RGB (red, green, blue) blend of lights, but test results have shown it isn't needed. And because indoor plants don't need much green, you'll notice most LED lights for growing have a purplish glow to them.

Grow Light History

The testing of LEDs on plant growth started back in the 1980s at the University of Wisconsin. In fact, NASA funded the tests, and what they found is that LEDs offer the most desirable conditions for growing plants indoors. No ballast is required, so it's much easier for anyone to grow plants, and it's less expensive. You can choose the colors you need, which means you can provide a blend of red, blue, and green lights to your plants to give them what they need for photosynthesis. And, in comparison to other light sources, LEDs produce significantly less heat, so you can increase the intensity of the light by placing them closer to crops. Although NASA learned this about LEDs decades ago, the LED lights are just now becoming more popular, more affordable, and easier to procure.

LED vs. fluorescent lights.

Fluorescent pros: Inexpensive & easy to use.

Of the two categories of grow lights, fluorescents are the more basic option. They're great for beginners because they're inexpensive, easy to use, and they get the job done.

They come in a variety of sizes, from extremely small to industrial-level huge, giving green thumbs plenty of options to choose from.

Fluorescent cons: Short lifespan & not recyclable.

Fluorescent lights are less energy-efficient than LED bulbs, so they may be more expensive to run over time even though the initial investment is lower. They also contain mercury, making them impossible to recycle and potentially dangerous if shattered.

Fluorescents have a much shorter life span than LEDs, so if you anticipate running your bulbs year-round, they're probably not the best option for you. If you are growing plants to maturity indoors, you may need full-spectrum LED lighting instead.

LED pros: Energy efficient & customizable.

LEDs are an increasingly popular alternative to fluorescents - in part because they give you more control over your light source. The benefit of LED lights for your plants is that it offers a full spectrum of lights, including blue light, which promotes the chlorophyll and leaf production in leafy vegetables and herbs; and red light, which benefits the blossom production of flowering or fruiting plants.

LEDs have a much longer life span and are more energy-efficient than fluorescent bulbs. This means that although they're more expensive up front, they'll pay for themselves over time if you use them enough.

LED cons: Expensive & not as attractive.

As mentioned, LED bulbs can be a shock to the wallet at first. They also cover a relatively small area, meaning you may have to buy more than one depending on the size of your plant collection.

The range of colors that some LEDs give off - bright blues, reds, and purples - aren't for everyone. Some consider LEDs too distracting and unappealing for home use.

Maxibright Daylight 300W LED Grow Light

Features:
The Maxibright LED is a full spectrum output LED with a passive heat dissipation design. The "fanless" design means there are no mechanical parts, vastly reducing the risk of failure. This energy-saving unit has a high photoelectric conversion efficiency which means that you save energy. The high photoelectric conversion efficiency means that you get more light per watt and less waste heat. Benefiting from a well-rounded full-spectrum and highly efficient LUM LED chips, the DAYLIGHT 300W LED makes for one of the most practical and affordable choices you can make when purchasing LED grow lights. Ensuring a full spectrum whilst maintaining an enhanced red region of the PAR curve gives a consistently high level of quality AND yield, every time you harvest.

FGI Square 3 320w LED Grow Light

Features:
This FGI LED grow light is our new favorite compact flowering LED. Super bright full-spectrum plus red and infrared diodes in a cool square within a square design. This light can run full cycle from seedling to veg to flowering. PAR levels at 15" are equal to a 1000W HPS. At 12" PAR levels exceed 1000W HPS. Cover a 3'x 3' area at 700 umols/ms uniformly, veg up to a 4' x 4' at 400 umols/ms uniformly. (The Square uses Far Red diodes which increase photosynthetic light levels and are outside of PAR measurements). Top bin Shenzhen Ledida diodes. Including 6% 720nm infrared plus + 27% 660nm red which growers have found is the key to potent flowers.

Factors To Choose For Buying A LED Grow Light

Before choosing the full spectrum led grow light look into these important features.

Light proportion

Light proportion or ratio means the present spectrum of your lights. Spectra are essential for growing plants. They make them big and full of flowers and fruits. Usually, they get it from sunlight which helps them with the photosynthesis process. That is why it's important to horticulture or other plantation. Plants usually prefer yellow, orange, red, blue, and in some cases UV and IR. Your LED grow lights should contain all these spectra.

Light intensity

Another essential factor is the light intensity that helps to grow plants healthy and colorful. So choose the brightest LED grow light for having good-shaped green leaves with big branches. Lack of light can make them leggy and tall. Also, it can turn leaves yellowish too.

Energy-saving and power-efficient

The led grow lights are well known for light intensity in low electricity. But still, some grow light devices can be a headache of your rising electricity bills. So, choose the light that uses less power but is ideal for bright lights and full coverage. Your LED grow lights should have the power to produce much light without using high power.

Watts are what matters to plant growth in many ways. Of course, the whole science of plantation and your experience on it does matter too. It can manipulate the illumination intensity, temperature, and nutrients. Cheap-led high watts grow lights can increase the growth as well as the whole temperature of your garden. And the electricity cost.

Duration of light

A good quality light should have a long lifespan. Usually, people think cheap lights have a low lifespan, and the expensive one has high. But the price always determines the longevity. So check out its performance rating by real customers. Longevity and good performance are important for your plants. It stays with your plants under all stages of growth.

Maintenance cost

Usually LED lights do not need high maintenance costs. But in some cases, the cheap light will burn out 3/4 days later after installing. Some use timers also to control the power switch. But, the quality of the light will save your money on maintenance.

High power cooling system

The best grow lights can heat up which is bad for the plant and also for the device. So lower temperature is a must for your indoor garden. A lower working temperature light can take care of your plants better than others.

The constant current driver circuit

An ideal LED circuit should supply continuous power. It regulates the intensity as the temperature changes. Lights with bloom & veg mode are great at providing the right intensity for your plant's needs.

Conclusion

So, whenever deciding to buy the best grow lights in the future, it's important to consider the essential aspects like full-spectrum lights, less heat generation, less power consumption, convenience, easy installation, etc.

More or less, all the products mentioned above offer these features. However, to determine what exactly the necessity for an indoor garden is, it is recommended to do thorough research and then choose the ideal product for a nursery/garden, etc whatever it is.